It’s not downright nuts, but it’s also not common to sight a black squirrel in the Rumson-Fair Haven area.

Yet, scampering around William Street in Fair Haven, there one was — bolting across the street, darting up a tree and copping a squat to snack on his harvested nut.

They’re not indigenous to the area like the preppie. In fact, the black squirrel is as uncommon here as high hair.

No one seems squirrelly about their rather rare sightings lately. And where the handsome(ish) rodents are known to settle — like Washington, D.C. and the campus of Princeton University, among other places — residents tend to take pride in the fact that they’ve nested in their hometowns.

Evolving from the same species of squirrel as their Eastern gray descendants, black squirrels originally hailed from Canada and can comprise as much as 25 percent of the total usual grey squirrel population, or one in 10,000.

Check out this Washington Post column about them by John Kelly.

Have you seen this guy or any others in the area? Where?

— Elaine Van Develde